Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  As Bowie kept on laying a paper trail of copies of his false titles, Graham ordered Hughes to provide every scrap of available information on what everyone now referred to as “the Bowie claims.” By January 1826 Hughes had examined the documents in his office, gathered what information he could in the locality, and knew the general mode of Bowie's operations. The question was how to remedy the situation. The only solution he could suggest was to decline to give a patent to anyone but the legal representatives through power of attorney of the original grantees—who were, of course, imaginary, “and where the legal Representatives of Vaca, Llano, Gonzales, De Santo & fifty others are to come from is more than I can tell, but I presume efforts will be made to find substitutes for them.”24

  All that Bowie knew with certainty was that his surveys were not being ordered and that his patents were not being issued. Characteristically he decided to go to Washington and confront Graham himself. Leaving Rezin his power of attorney to handle affairs in his absence, James went to New Orleans in late January.25 Bowie spent some time in the city before he booked passage, and then on the evening of February 13 he stepped aboard the ship Virginia bound for New York, with the expectation of a short voyage. He had seen much of Louisiana and a bit of Texas. Ahead of him lay a wholly new part of the nation, and the real seats of power.26

  Following the voyage through the Gulf and up the Atlantic coast, Bowie traveled by post road from New York to Washington, reaching the capital before the end of February. Certainly the General Land Office claimed one of his first visits, and he found George Graham ready for him. The commissioner refused to be either cajoled or bullied. He may even have confronted Bowie with the evidence amassed to date to prove his claims fraudulent. Certainly Bowie left the office with nothing but a bitter resentment toward Graham.27 Moreover, if Bowie did not already know of the alliance between Graham and Johnston, he surely knew of it by now. Graham entertained Johnston for dinner at his home while Bowie was in Washington, and when conversation turned inevitably to news from Louisiana, Graham must have told Johnston of Bowie's visit. The senator already had cause to regard Bowie as a character to suspect, thanks to correspondence from Louisiana, and after talking with Graham he must have watched him carefully from then on, especially considering that some of Bowie's Robert Martin claims adjoined the Terrebonne plantation that he operated in partnership with Graham.28

  As for Bowie, he probably did not bother visiting Johnston while in Washington. Instead he called on Representative Brent, with whom he already had much in common. Of course, more than one suspicious land claim attached to Brent himself. He had some influence in Washington, and as one of the Louisiana representatives who cast the state's vote against Jackson in the 1825 House election, he could be expected to have access to President Adams's ear. Bowie understood things like influence and how to cultivate relations with those who possessed it. Moreover, Brent loathed Johnston, and sensing now that the senator was his foe as well as Graham, Bowie could use Brent's hatred to his own advantage. Brent also favored a change in the incumbent at the surveyor general's office, and that would certainly benefit the fortunes of Bowie's claims, for a new man might not regard them with the prejudice that now permeated the General Land Office.29 Thus their combined antipathies and mutual interests made them natural allies. Through Brent, Bowie may even have gotten an interview with Secretary of State Henry Clay, whose counsel would be important in another scheme then gestating in Bowie's fertile brain.30 When Bowie left Washington that spring to return to Louisiana, he brought with him Brent's warm friendship and support. Brent may not have known it, but Bowie also came away from the capital with a taste for the kind of power to be wielded there, and an idea of where he could get it.31

  Once back in Alexandria, James Bowie redoubled his efforts. For several weeks that summer he rode through the parishes west and north of town, still pressing to get his surveys done, displaying his forged papers and—regardless of what Graham may have told him—announcing that he would soon be able to sell the land.32 At the same time, he carefully ingratiated himself with the men of property in Catahoula, Avoyelles, and Ouachita Parishes, with an end in mind that he did not as yet reveal. He had already made good inroads into the Rapides community. Alexandria was a pleasant, compact village on the edge of a live oak forest just back from the Red River, its whitewashed houses rimmed with verandas and piazzas, and shaded by China and Catalpa trees. The nearby falls on the river made a constant, not-unpleasant hum in the ears of the inhabitants. Several professional men, doctors and lawyers, practiced there, and the new College of Rapides admitted tuition students into its large, ugly edifice. The weekly Louisiana Herald provided some semblance of regional news, and a new bank made fitful starts at encouraging the economy of the region.33 Unfortunately the bank only opened in 1824, secured capitalization slowly, and by the following year so selectively limited the risk on its loans that one disgruntled man complained that “it appears to me that the Establishment is only intended to help those who dont stand in need of it & for the accommodation of speculators & swindlers.”34 Bowie himself may have been one of those speculators seeking loans, but since he was in the business of forging titles rather than buying them, he hardly had need of bank loans, while he secured enough from personal advances from friends and an occasional land sale to support himself.35

  Besides, James Bowie already had a line on a small fortune even if his land deals all fell through. He discussed more than land claims with Brent and others in Washington, hence his other stops almost certainly included the Treasury and Henry Clay's State Department to look into another matter. Charles Mulhollan—one of his near neighbors on Bayou Boeuf and probably an acquaintance from the Laffite days, when Mulhollan illegally imported slaves—put Bowie onto an opportunity that naturally appealed to him. Perhaps everyone in Rapides knew of the long-standing claims of old Reuben Kemper. The man was an undeniable hero in the southwestern mode. A leader in the successful West Florida rebellion that eventually saw the Florida parishes annexed to Louisiana, he then fought with his brother in Texas before the War of 1812 and played a vital part in securing Jackson's victory at New Orleans.36 Certainly Bowie cultivated his acquaintance, even though Kemper was known to be friendly with George Graham, and in the last election had opposed Brent.37 Kemper commanded tremendous respect in the parish despite his declining years.

  In the West Florida enterprise, Henri de la Français—usually referred to as Enrique de la Francia, the Spanish version—provided the insurgents arms and ammunition worth $11,850, and Kemper took personal responsibility. Kemper believed that those arms later went to American forces in the War of 1812, and in April 1814, when the U.S. government assumed the debts of the Florida republic, Kemper presumed that this would include the de la Français matter. In January 1817 de la Français gave Kemper his power of attorney to collect the debt for him, and being in poor health himself transferred authority to receive the claim to Kemper's close friend William Johnson of Mississippi. Two years later de la Français died of fever, the claim still unpaid. Kemper himself had fed and lodged the man for several years, and from his own funds advanced him more than $4,000 against the claim.38

  Following de la Français's death, Mulhollan, the curator of his estate, secured a judgment in November 1822 against Kemper for the debt plus 10 percent interest a year, while Kemper himself kept steadily pressing the claim. By 1824 he had enlisted the aid of Josiah Johnston and repeatedly urged him to serve his interests in Washington.39 Further muddying the matter, at some point William Johnson was believed to have transferred the claim back to Kemper, but the curator, Mulhollan, who had been a neighbor of de la Français at Bayou Sara in his last years, thought otherwise. No written transfer existed, which meant that de la Français's heirs—or those purporting to be his heirs—might have a chance at staking the claim themselves.40

  Mulhollan, apparently a kindred spirit, approached Bowie, and the upshot was that in mid-May 1826 Bowie called on Kemper and informed him th
at he had acquired the claim from de la Français's heirs at the instigation of Mulhollan. He showed the old man a document of transfer, of course, but Kemper was not convinced. “I am sorry to say it is done by them by an unfair contrivance,” he complained to Johnston.41 As usual with Bowie, that “contrivance” was forgery and perjury, with probably a bit of bribery in the mix. During his visit to New Orleans in February, prior to sailing for Washington, he appeared before local notary Felix De Armas, with a man in tow who swore on oath that he was the brother and sole heir of de la Français, one Jose de la Francia of Matanzas, Cuba. While the notary copied his statement, de la Francia attested that he had appointed Bowie “his true and lawful attorney” to collect the $11,850 plus interest from Kemper. Further, he empowered Bowie to receive also the 10 percent a year on the debt, which by now amounted to $17,775, making the total debt $29,625. In default of payment by Kemper, de la Francia authorized Bowie to take all lawful means necessary to collect the debt.42

  Kemper could only plead with Josiah Johnston for protection. “I pray you to be on the alert,” he said a few days after Bowie called, and at the same time appointed Johnston as his agent in Washington for all his affairs, for Kemper also had nearly $40,000 in claims and accrued interest of his own due him for funds he had advanced the West Florida insurgents.43 Johnston did look into Kemper's problem, but what he found was embarrassing to Kemper and positively disconcerting to Bowie. When West Florida submitted to the Treasury Department a certificate listing all the claims that it recognized to be transferred to the United States, the de la Français claim did not appear. It turned out that a Spanish officer had turned the arms over to de la Français for safekeeping when he thought his post threatened by the Florida rebels, but instead of transporting the weaponry to another Spanish post, de la Français sold them to Kemper, taking his personal note in payment. Soon afterward the Spanish commander appeared on the scene and forcibly retrieved the cache. The Treasury Department took the position that since de la Français had stolen the arms in the first place, and since the Spanish took them back later, the government had derived no benefit from the arms and no money was due.44 That meant not only that Kemper was owed nothing, but also that in forging the power of attorney, Bowie had acquired title to nothing.

  When Johnston notified Kemper of his findings in a letter on July 6, the old man may have been chagrined, but the news startled Bowie. In frustration he said he would never take another step in the matter. “I hope he has been as good as his word,” said Kemper, “yet I have my doubts of his sincerity.” Before leaving Kemper's, Bowie railed against Senator Johnston “and made some very unjust remarks,” in which he tried to turn Kemper against Johnston, saying that the man to depend on in Washington was Brent. But there, seemingly, they left the matter. Bowie had nothing, but honest old Kemper somehow felt that he was still personally responsible to the de la Français heirs—if any—once again, even though the man had spent not a cent for the arms, and they never saw use in the War of 1812. All he could do was urge Johnston anew to press his personal claim of forty thousand dollars plus interest with the government. Payment of that would allow him to settle with Bowie.45

  Bowie probably drowned some of his frustration at the Rapides Inn, where he could find a game of cards and a convivial glass, as well as reflect on how to recover the Kemper situation, for he rarely let even major setbacks deter him from an enterprise. Meanwhile the inn was an important place to meet the men he needed to know, and his brother John saw that James was “very successful in securing a fair portion of the friendship of the better class of the people.”46 It was a kind of society that suited his ambitions and pretensions. Travelers found the planters of this area “reckless of the value of money,” a people who “live more in sensation, than in reflection,” and that certainly described James Bowie.47“His extreme politeness and fascinating manners were captivating,” confessed one friend, “and he was much esteemed by his friends, and those who knew him best.” He also paid very careful attention to his appearance. “James Bowie always dressed with good taste,” said his friend Sparks.48 A successful and ambitious man of business must look successful and use money lavishly, even if he wasted it at the gaming tables. “Money gotten easily, and without labor,” commented the disapproving master of the College of Rapides, “is easily lost.”49

  Other associations in the community were also important. Alexandria had as yet no Masonic lodge of its own, but Bowie became a Freemason either at Natchez or in one of the new lodges at Natchitoches or Opelousas.50 Such fraternal organizations wielded enormous social and business as well as political importance on the frontier, and no man of Bowie's aspirations could afford not to be a Mason, though there was a burgeoning anti-Masonic political movement among the National Republicans and other groups, so he might need to be wary of being too closely tied to the order. Masonry gave him further entrée into the most influential parlors and counting houses. Meanwhile, he gained acquaintance with the Cuny family, led by its scion Gen. Samuel Cuny and his physician brother, Richard. Connection to the Cunys naturally led to the Wellses, and James was already a friend of Samuel L. Wells III, an aspiring local attorney and politician exactly his own age, whose brother Montfort had run for the legislature two years before and who himself had sought the office of sheriff in 1824, only to lose to the land speculator and reputed duelist Maj. Norris Wright, in part because of several forged ballots. In the way of Rapides society, becoming a friend of the Wellses automatically made one an enemy of Wright, but then that was Bowie's nature anyhow. “He loved his friends with all the ardor of youth,” said brother John, “and hated his enemies and their friends with all the rancor of the Indian.”51

  Knowing the prominent Alexandria men also introduced Bowie to their sisters and daughters. He was thirty years old when he returned from Washington, still unmarried and apparently unentangled romantically. It is unlikely that he remained entirely a stranger to female company, however. Vague stories later surfaced of dalliances with a Creole girl named Judalon de Bornay in New Orleans, an Acadian woman named Sibil Cade, and even the former quadroon mistress of Laffite, Catherine Villars. A young Spanish noblewoman in New Orleans named Montejo was also rumored to be involved, but her parents' intractable disapproval of Bowie led her in the end to enter a convent.52

  In Alexandria, however, Samuel Wells had an orphaned cousin named Cecilia, just turning twenty-one when Bowie returned from his Washington trip, and in her he may have taken a more serious interest, quite possibly with the encouragement of the Wells brothers, who looked on her as a sister. Setting aside any possible romantic attractions Bowie may have felt for her, such an alliance with one of Rapides' most influential families would have been very much to his purpose. If indeed he did court Cecilia Wells, though, he did it with a leisurely pace and deliberation that never characterized any of his other actions.53

  These associations inevitably drew Bowie into the family and political squalls that swirled constantly in Rapides. Alexandria sat isolated from the rest of the state, with few roads and bridges connecting it to other communities. A man could only travel overland to the Mississippi in the fall and winter; for the rest of the year the roads became swamps. This isolation, compounded by slow and indifferent mail service that took eight days just to get a letter from New Orleans, turned the community in on itself, compounding its natural preoccupation with local matters. Every event, no matter how insignificant, seemed enlarged in importance by boredom, isolation, and the ever-present ambition and avarice. The hostility of the factions in the area became notorious throughout Louisiana.54

  In May 1826, not long after Bowie's return from Washington, John Johnston complained that Alexandria “is a dull place and it affords nothing—much idleness, much distress, and no prospect of a change. I am afraid it is on the decline.” Despite the recovery from the depression, prosperity did not wait around the corner. “The cry of hard times is raised with a louder voice than ever known in this country,” he told his broth
er, and that only infused more pollution into the already volatile climate.55 By June the decline in crop prices, the bankruptcy of some of the inhabitants, and the static or declining population, led him to fear that Rapides was in a permanent slump. Worse was the effect on the populace. “Society here, if I do not now abase the term, stands on a trembling point, beyond which if but little pressed by its enemies, it will be viewed, in its unreclaimable state,” he warned the senator. “A feeling of hostility seems to seize every mind, to enter every Bosom.” He saw all around him “more fighting, menacing, abusing than I have ever before known.” Many families went to homes in the cool pine woods to escape the summer heat, and he could only hope that their seething passions might cool with their bodies.56

  Such calm was hardly likely in an election year, however. Brent stood for reelection again, and the campaign proved if anything even more bitter than those before. Charges swirled of Brent's heavy engagement in forged Spanish grant business, and that in Washington he received money for claims on behalf of his constituents but failed to turn it over. Others said that Brent was bankrupt and reneging on his debts in the district. In Natchitoches he was roundly detested.57 For his part, as before, Brent wisely stayed in the East at his new estate, Pamonky, on the Potomac. Everyone expected him to be easy prey after his part in electing Adams the year before, but the Jacksonians in Louisiana fell apart this year and fielded two candidates, dividing the opposition vote. As the day for the voting approached in late July, Brent once again expected to win, and so he did by a majority of more than five hundred votes.58